I’m gonna have to skip a few days ahead just to tell you this – Well it had to happen, I finally decide to get a Skype number so it’s easier for people to get hold of me and I can update my phone, so it’s not so slow. That’s right I bad mouth Apple, and if you read the T&Cs properly you’ll notice there is a part that reads:
“No matter where you are in the world, if you decide to boycott Apple with public or private declaration, we will do anything in our power to destroy your android, window or any other services phone, so you will want to come back.”
I’m not sure how they got me, but my “Huawei” phone decided it had enough of the chargers I had and completely died! Actually there was a dark figure in my room the night before the incident, I was hoping it was the milk tray man but it was probably Steve Jobs’s PA! Seriously it’s the last time I buy a phone that I can’t pronounce
Anyway enough of that mobile drama crap we have shoddy low budget adventures to have 🙂
You might notice a pattern here, every city in US that I have loved starts with an S, every one starting L, I loathe, actually it puts the L&A in loathe! Now before the hate campaign starts, I’m going to end on this…. LA is one of those places that you either love or hate, like Paris or Birmingham!
Now fans of Frasier will hopefully know what I mean but the city of Seattle actually reflects what the main character is like. Sophisticated, simple yet complex, loads of fun, a little pretentious and oddly attractive. Yes I have a soft spot for tall German American uppity psychologists who can play one of my favourite X-Men characters, oh Kelsey, take me away in the Blackbird X-Jet!
I love this city, there’s absolutely nothing about this place I don’t like, and it’s all down to one particular area…..Space Needle Park! I did go to other parts of the city but this was by far my favourite part! Sorry just wiping the drool from my chin, I had a flashback from when I saw the REAL Christopher Reeve Superman costume (may he RIP), more on that later.
Erase that last bit the only thing I didn’t like about it was my taxi ride to the hostel, you would think that as a taxi driver he would know where to go…….EVEN WITH A TOMTOM! Im not sure how to say this without coming off offensive (as if that stops me) but he was like a mix of an old Warner bros cartoon of an oriental guy and Mr Magoo! That’s not even an exaggeration. He couldn’t read his own Tom Tom that was 60cm away and he sounded fresh off the Dim Sum boat!! So frustrating I felt like my driving instructor minus the qualification and sexual tension.
So after us driving up two wrong streets, one of them being one way, me directing him and me getting a cheap fare as he’d forgotten to switch on the machine we arrive! For the record, for 15 seconds that day I was white!
Now I arrive at the hostel, walking like Barbi after a few two many slippery nipple shots, I’m Impressed, it’s like Nile Cranes decorated this place during his student years, yes there will be a lot of Frasier and Meg Ryan puns and references in this blog. Now normally I give you hints and recommendations but you, yes YOU have to go to this place (http://www.cityhostelseattle.com/city_hostel_seattle) its incredible, ignore the stupid website photos btw and I’ll tell you why, otherwise this wouldn’t be helpful at all.
THE SHOWERS!
After a 2 day train journey with no showers, the same clothes and a taxi ride that was unnecessarily long you’ll need this shower. I’ve never felt so clean in my life, the power shower was stronger than Superman and Thor combined, I’m glad to be rid of the 2 layers of skin which were moulds of my clothes really. The only thing I can smell right now is Pomegranate and Coconut shower gel, I’m going to have a herbal essence fake orgasm in a minute….
ACHEM! Come back stop thinking of me in a shower getting excited while washing my bits, no….STOP it! Besides whatever you’re thinking it’s bigger than that, moving on!
After dropping my stuff off I go for a walk around the area and it’s great, one thing I was impressed with was that in one street, you had loads of different types of restaurants and they weren’t chains either. I went to a Japanese place which was next door and was quite cheap for what they gave you, $20 for a noodle dish and lychee cocktail, this is why I’m poor! There was even a Jazz club at the end of my block, which I went into and was so cool I even got to hear a very random scat (Jazz style not a dirty sexual reference), freeform rendition of FRASIER & JURASSIC PARK!
Ok here’s the bit that’s gonna take a long time to write about, Space Needle Park, Marina and Market day. Get the Sangrias in people we’re gonna be here a while. And believe it takes me longer to write and edit than it does to read, be grateful I kept this bit in, you lucky people!
The park is about 10 minutes away from my hostel, it’s easily reachable from most of the city, bus, cycle or one of the coolest features, the monorail! (http://www.seattlemonorail.com/) it’s only 2 minutes from the centre and zooms into the middle of the park. All I’m gonna say is that ELVIS has used it, and according to the movie Dreamgirls, this guy stole a few black rock and Motown songs, but who cares, he’s still cool!
The Space Needle……is just awesome!! That’s it!
It’s a monstrous and beautiful tower where you can see the whole entire city, go in a lift that shoots at 35mph and has neat little bars, cafes and shops, yes you can buy a mini space needle and put it in your bookcase with your mini Eiffel tower.
It’s around $35 -$50 to do a launch to the top of the needle and if you want you can add the glass garden tour too. (http://www.spaceneedle.com/home/)
Now the glass garden I would recommend to do, if you like anything quirky, kitsch and downright funky. All designed and created by a one eyed artist who looks like Tim Burton’s evil brother. There’s loads of surreal and creative sculptures made to look like a garden and abstract pieces in an actual garden, I highly suggest the buyer for home base go barter for some of these in their SummerWinterAutumnSpring range.
Also in this park are loads of other museums catered to kids, pretentious art lovers and the easily excitable. There’s even a large food court and an actual park with a few playgrounds to busy the kids while you stock up on double espresso in Starbucks.
Now one place you definitely need to go to is the EMP museum, all those pop culture, fantasy, horror, media and music fans (music is media dummy) will love this. (http://www.empmuseum.org/)
It has everything, there’s normally a music exhibition, at the time of going, I saw Beatles, R.E.M, Nirvana and the ultimate guitar legend, Jimi Hendrik (insert girly high pitched scream of joy)!!
There’s literally loads of random exhibitions of anything to do with media, it seemed to be the Brit Invasion that was on in some rooms, so I saw everything that I saw in the O2 in Greenwich……oh joy! However when you first walk in there’s actually a large IMAX sized screen featuring videos from artists signed with EMG, so I got to see a 30ft Justin Timberlake! I’ve not been this overjoyed since I got to see Michael Fassbender in Shame on the BIG screen! MY EYES, MY EYES!
There’s also a fantasy room, so fans of G.O.T, L.o.T.R, D&D, WoW and anything else that is painfully hard to write the abbreviation for on an iPad will be here, I feel the hobbit ears wiggling with glee.
Next is the bit where I thought my legs were gonna buckle under me……the horror, comic and sci-fi section. I’m not sure if I should write what I saw here as that will require a blog of its own and I would need a medic on hand with sedatives to calm me down. All I want to mention is the original costume for SUPERMAN was here and DARTH VADER’s Lightsaber! Urge to cry….rising!
Right enough of this geeky nocturnal emissions!
I rode the monorail to the main town ($4.50 for a return) and it’s cool to see the city from a good height and view where all the Subways and Burger Kings are. You arrive at a nice art deco looking mall in the main square with a Macy’s looming over it.
Headed down to the Marina which you can get ferries and boats to other parts of the city and islands too however I didn’t manage to do this as all I wanted to do was view the marina and eat. Sorry exploration fans, if I was Indiana Jones I would be sat down just before the temple of doom eating a rack of ribs before venturing further. Mmmmm Ribs!
What a minute….what’s the time? Why do I look at my wrist knowing full well I don’t have a watch on me? I’m missing the free open mic night at the hostel!
I rush back on the monorail (weeee) and gingerly slide into the room to sit at the front as a comic stand up is performing. Now I don’t want to criticise but he wasn’t very good, he didn’t even pick on me for coming in late, there were loads of chances to make jokes about me there, even if it was racist and about black people time, I would’ve laughed. I had a subway mega sized cup on me,there could have been a joke there too! Seriously if I say the word “subway” enough they might sponsor the site!
SUBWAY!
Anyway the rest of the evening was listening to these comics and taking notes, I even ended up speaking to them about writing and performing, most of them have been doing it for months and just do hostel tours to get practice. Note taken! Jokes stolen, we move on to tomorrow.
Katy Perry – Firework, Madonna – Celebration, Kelis – 4th of July!!
Yes it’s the musical playlist of a camp celebration of Independence day, and it seems to be around the city. I was gonna say I got all fake patriotic to fit in with the Americans but no, after that god awful movie named after the same day, I spent the majority of the day youtubing!
I went out late afternoon headed to my favourite part of the Space Needle park and set up my little picnic area, which was soon surrounded as soon as a fireworks were lit! Call me a killjoy but after a few fireworks I start to get bored of straining my neck and getting a dry mouth from forcibly saying “ooh”. Time for angry birds star wars 2 again.
To any Americans who may be reading this blog, I did sing your national anthem but as the below….
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gItsdEMCDQI) – GO MAYA
Wasn’t that special?? I did the exact same rendition but slightly pitcher and more off key, hey I tried! I did get excited when I saw a Jack Russell and decided to call it Eddie even though it was a girl and I think the owner looked worried as I petted way more than I needed to!
I think that was it, there was nothing special really, Independence day was on a Friday and there were a few people dressed like the Statue of Liberty’s pimp (thanks family guy) but it seemed to be a massive pub and club crawl from what I saw. Maybe I missed out on some things due to places being fenced off for private functions and not really knowing where to go and missed the spirit of “f@&* you England” day, oh well.
I’m heading to my room with this extra large hotdog, to do some packing……of my suitcase you dirty perv! VILE!
So nice early morning start as I now head to Canada! There are coaches or trains from Seattle to Vancouver/ Edmonton and its quite quick, only 4 hours. If you have the money head for the train for a scenic 3 hour journey but if you’re on a budget or just smart with your money, get that greyhound bitch!
Unfortunately for some reason, they provided the coach that not even Megabus would buy for a shuttle from Sheffield to Grimsby. No leather seating, no plug points but strangely enough, one of the cleanest toilets I have ever witnessed, I went in there for a breath of fresh air in comparison to the rest of the coach.
Ummmm there’s a massive lack of photos and memories of this journey due to me being asleep up to the Canadian border and after that all I did was photograph a nightclub that was right after the border, I assume the drinking ages are different from US?!
Only good memory I have of the journey is just going “WOW this is Canada”.
Again people thanks for reading this section, I kind of spared you the full experience of the park but it’s just so freaking awesome! Seattle just rules!
Let’s not muck aboot and head to the Vancouver/Whistler section……AY!
